George Knightley has told Emma very frankly that she does not like Jane Fairfax, because Emma sees in her the really accomplished young woman that Emma wishes to be herself, but that she has not the self-denial and perseverance to become actually. Emma, in her best and most candid moments, is driven to own there is some truth in this accusation. At other times she defends her bad taste in preferring Harriet Smith as a friend, by asserting that she—Emma—can never get acquainted with Jane Fairfax. “She did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve, such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not; and then her aunt was such an eternal talker! and she was made such a fuss with by everybody; and it was always imagined that they were to be so intimate; because their ages were the same, everybody had supposed they must be so fond of each other.”
In the meantime Miss Campbell, with whom Jane had been brought up, though inferior to her friend both in beauty and accomplishments, has, as Jane Austen says, “by that luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs,” engaged the affections and married happily, after a short acquaintance, a Mr. Dixon, a young, agreeable, and rich man.
Jane Fairfax is one-and-twenty, the age at which she had fixed, in her own mind, on beginning her career as a governess. The following are the strong terms in which the author refers to the step about to be taken:—“With the fortitude of a devoted noviciate, she had resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.” Surely this is exaggerated language, even for the last century, and reflects painfully both on the footing which governesses occupied, and on the qualifications deemed essential to gentlewomen, among our mothers and grandmothers. There is also an inconsistency in it where this tale is concerned, and one perceives that Jane Austen’s rooted class prejudices cause even so wise a woman to contradict herself; for in the beginning of the book we have an evident indication how much respected and liked Mrs. Weston had been when, as Miss Taylor, she had filled the post of governess to Emma Woodhouse. No relations in the story are happier and pleasanter than those which are involved in the warm and lasting friendship between the two who had been formerly teacher and pupil. Why might not Jane Fairfax have looked forward to being another Miss Taylor?
Colonel and Mrs. Campbell’s good sense had led them to acquiesce in Jane Fairfax’s determination, loth as they were to lose her company, and it was only because she had not been quite well, or in equal spirits for some time, that they had used their influence to induce her not to enter immediately on her arduous duties, but to spend the last three months of her liberty with her fond grandmother and aunt in Janet’s native air, while the Campbells paid their first visit to their married daughter settled in Ireland.
Emma heard the first, not very welcome news of Jane Fairfax’s coming, as she sought to get rid of Harriet Smith’s dolefulness, and at the same time to do an irksome duty by taking Harriet to call at the Bateses. Mrs. and Miss Bates loved to be called on, and Emma knew she was “considered by the very few who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of their scanty comforts.”
“She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley, and some from her own heart, as to her deficiency, but none were equal to counteract the persuasion of its being very disagreeable—a waste of time—tiresome women—and all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second and third rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore she seldom went near them.” But now she made the sudden resolution of not passing their door without going in, observing, as she proposed it to Harriet, that as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.
“The house belonged to people in business; Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment which was everything to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed; the quiet, neat old lady, who, with her knitting, was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse; and her more active, talking daughter almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse’s health, cheerful communications about her mother’s, and sweet cake from the buffet.”
Emma had argued without her host, as she soon hears from Miss Bates, who prattles with the delightful abandon of the most innocent, unsuspicious heart, in company with the most honest thick head in the world. She rambles, breaks off, diverges right and left in her monologues, as only a very talkative, simple-minded, elderly woman—a Mrs. Nickleby or a Miss Bates—can wander, pull herself up, and start afresh in her conversation. Miss Bates has only just finished reading a letter from her niece to a previous visitor, and, of course, mentions what she has been about.
“Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest, ‘Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I hope she is well?’”
“‘Thank you, you are so kind!’ replied the happily-deceived aunt, while eagerly hunting for the letter. ‘Oh, here it is! I was sure it could not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and since she went away I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her—a letter from Jane—that she can never hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only put under my huswife; and since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says——But first of all I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter, only two pages you see, hardly two, and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often says, when the letter is first opened, “Well, Hetty, now I think you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work”—don’t you, ma’am? And then I tell her I am sure she would contrive to make it out for herself, if she had nobody to do it for her, every word of it. I am sure she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed, though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmamma, you must have had very strong eyes to see as you do, and so much fine work as you have done too! I only wish my eyes may last me as well.’